


Living Nightmare

by SilverOwlCity



Category: Charmed (TV)
Genre: Angst, Brief - Empath Chris, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Unchanged Future, Visions, changed future
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-06-23 04:52:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15598689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverOwlCity/pseuds/SilverOwlCity
Summary: It’s his fourteenth birthday when he realizes that his dreams aren’t just dreams.





	Living Nightmare

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Charmed.

It’s his fourteenth birthday when he realizes that his dreams aren’t just dreams.

This onesame way his day had. He rises, excited and proud to be fourteen. But now he feels a glimmer of hope he hadn’t when he’d actually woken up the previous morning. His dream self’s glimmer of hope soon becomes overwhelming as he descends the stairs.

He pads his way into the kitchen. His mother stands at the stove, scrambling some eggs for him. She smiles at him and moves to kiss him on the head. He turns and the hope that had flooded him immediately sours to resigned disappointment and anguish.

He isn’t here again. Didn’t even bother to send a card this year, either.

It is something that has always bothered him about the dreams. He relives the day, but there are some big differences. Like his dad is rarely in them and when he is, he’s yelling at his youngest son or praising his favorite. In some of his dreams, his mother’s youngest sister is dead. His sister and his fourth aunt never appear in them.

His mother smiles sweetly at him when she gives him his plate. Plans for today included a movie and an arcade. His brother is better at all the games, but he doesn’t mind - they’re still fun.

As the thought crosses his mind, Wy comes racing down the steps and bids them good-bye. Apparently, dad’s taking him to go practice with his powers. He smiles and waves before orbing out.

Their mom frowns and asks Chris what he wants to do first. They decide to forego all plans and watch movies all day instead.

He knows that the dream is wrong because his whole family went out to an arcade and won more than they should have, accumulating enough points for the beanbag chair that was his biggest birthday gift.

Around 1, as he and his mother cry at the ending of Air Bud (which honestly should not be making them cry - it’s not a sad movie, has a happy ending and everything), the first of the demons appear. His mother raises her hands and blows it up, but four more appear in its wake.

Chris does his best to deflect the athames, fire, and energy own at him and his mom. Still, though, it doesn’t take long before they’re overwhelmed and calling for Aunt Paige, Wyatt, Leo. Anybody.

Part of his subconscious struggles to end the dream because this isn’t real - this never happened.

But he instead has to watch in horror as an athame embeds itself in his stomach when he’s too slow to deflect it. His pained cry calls his mother’s attention. An energy ball slams into her as she moves toward him. The glass shatters as she’s thrown through the window, head smacking the ground painfully.

Her eyes are frozen open, pain clouding them. Chris’s mouth is a mirror of hers as he silently screams. He cannot make any noise as the demons turn around to finish him off. He’s prepared for death when Aunt Paige bursts through the door, muttering about an anti-orbing charm.

She returns everything the demons throw at her faster than Chris had been able to. He watches her fight, eyesight growing dimmer. He sees her look frantically around for Piper before finding her body and sobbing.

It takes her a few minutes to remember her nephew. When she turns her red eyes to him, she gasps in horror and scrambles to his side. Already, his eyes are glossing over.

“This is going to hurt,” she tells him.

The knife pulls free in one simple motion and he wakes up screaming in agony.

He tells his parents when they find the stab wound on him. His father is quick to heal it, pulling him against his chest and pressing soft kisses to his hair as tears fall.

He’s fourteen when he learns of another timeline in which his big brother turned evil. Apparently, he was some sort of time-traveling hero. He preens, feeling proud to have done something so good. His parents are not amused.

 

 

 

From then on, he grows up with his other self knowingly. He finds out how his and his mother’s ambush was possible, learns more why the other version of himself hated their father so.

For a month when he is sixteen, he wakes up with burns, cuts, and welts on his skin. He’s unable to meet the eyes of his brother - his innocent brither - knowing the older boy knows he caused the marks. He mourns his brother’s alternate self and cries at the pain his scars cause his family.

He rescues a witch named Bianca from Wyatt in his dreams,discovers how his parents nearly prevented her death in this timeline. They fall in love as he watches.

His family gets injured more and more as his dream rebellion grows. They grow larger as his cousins and siblings drag friends into 5e family in the real world. In his dreams, he watches people that he loves - loved - in both worlds die one by one.

The night of Wyatt’s wedding, he watches his brother drive Excalibur through their cousin Parker’s chest. The light fades from her eyes and Chris himself shatters as his last living family dies by his brother’s hands.

He wakes himself in tears, familiar agony pouring from his lips.

It shouldn’t be so familiar. He wishes it wasn’t.

 

 

 

He draws away from his family and peers as his dreams get worse. He knows how to treat a burn and sew his skin shut. He knows he shouldn’t need to.

He lives in mystified horror when Bianca betrays him for his brother. He calls his brother before he falls asleep because he knows something is wrong.

Wyatt’s the only reason he survives his suicide attempt. When he hits the pavement, he doesn’t wake up. Blood blooms at his temple, neck snapping to the side.

In his life, it is his brother that saves him. In his dreams, it is his aunt.

Things start to get a bit better as he approaches his twenty first birthday. Bianca returns to him. The rebellion is saving people and vanquishing demons. The best part is: they have a plan. He’s going back in time.

He dreams of his parents’ past. He doesn’t tell them who he is. He defeats many demons but can’t find the right one. Chris chants over and over, yelling at his alternate self that Gideon is the threat. The message doesn’t get through.

He watches himself break his parents up, uncaring about how he might not be born. He watches the girls get their identities stolen. He’s proud to know he still recognized his family. He watches the genie debacle and the problem with the headless horseman. He fades from existence and suddenly pops back into it.

As he approaches his twenty-third birthday, his doppelgänger becomes more restless. Outside of his dreams, his family is rallying. They don’t talk to him about the problem. It terrifies him.

He knows there’s something going on. His parents and aunts won’t tell him or their children what it is but they know it’s something. They’re getting more anxious and frantic.

He figures out why when he falls asleep the night of his birthday. The moment Chris sees the athame, he knows what’s going to happen. His dream doesn’t complete itself like the others have.

The moment the athame embeds itself in his abdomen, he’s awake. It was a dream. All if it. There is no athame in him.

There is a stab wound. There is poison. It leeches at his magic - at his life force. He feels drained, more tired.

Somehow, the feeling registers on his brother’s radar. Wyatt runs into his room before he’s called. The rest of his family joins not long after.

It’s odd. To see his father with tears falling freely. To hear his mother’s voice break. To feel so much pain.

It’s unsettling. For Melinda to beg him for something. For the golden glow not to warm him. For the cupids to be broken-hearted.

It isn’t as painful as he imagined. It’s more painful than anything else he has ever experienced.

He’s in two worlds - one empty save his father and the other spilling over with family. He’s happy that his last memory is from the second. He’s glad that if he’s going to die, he’ll be surrounded by family.

When he rises above their heads, a familiar face greets him. He had met her once in his dream - the time he almost took his life. Prue’s smile is kind as the niece named for her wails below her.

Chris and his aunt watch their family mourn. He’ll miss them, but they’ll move on. He’ll see them again. Eventually.


End file.
